Page 59 of Serendipity

I nodded, grinning. Yeah. This fucker got it. “I was telling him about our code here at Damnation.

That the kids couldn’t be safer if they were in Fort Knox.”

Judas narrowed his eye. “You couldn’t have said that out loud for the whole class?” I shrugged and he shook his head. “So what will it be? Just know, if you do anything to hurt Serendipity or this Club, I will put a bullet in your head and dance in your brain matter.”

Sera gave him a horrified look, covering the little girl's ears and kicking him in the shin, but he ignored her. “Last thing. Sera belongs to us. Get used to it, because if you make her cry again, I’ll chop your fucking dick off. Are we clear?”

Marco tipped his head back and did his huffing laugh. That was probably the first sign that he was going to fit in just fine.

25

GOLIATH

The woman had changed everything. I hated it. Judas letting that guy stay had been a shit fucking decision he never would have made before she came along. This Marco was as fucking dead inside as I was. You could see the killer hiding beneath the pleasant surface. All big smiles and dead eyes. I knew the type. Fuck I was the type. Though I never smiled pleasantly at anyone. Bet he would slit all our throats in our sleep if it suited his purposes.

You didn’t invite a fucking snake into your nest.

But no matter what I said, Judas wouldn’t listen. He was soft over the woman. He would have given her the President’s patch if she asked for it. Pretty sure he’d hand her his heart on a platter if she asked.

I sat on the asphalt, replacing some parts in my bike that had come in the mail. I could have taken it to the garage, but I just wanted to be alone.

This Marco had been here for a week. They stuck them on the top floor in the only two bedroom apartment we had. It’d been closed up for years, and it took the sweet butts hours to clean it. Even Sera helped which had made Cain and Sol fuss over her like fucking pussies. Honestly, while no one was particularly warming to the killer, the whole Club fussed over those kids like they were fucking mascots or pets or something.

I scraped my knuckles and dropped a nut, swearing as it bounced along the gutter, stopping at a pair of light-up glitter shoes. Fuck, thinking about it had summoned one. I looked at the little girl, Cara, as she picked up the nut and walked over to hand it to me.

She dropped it in my hand and I grunted a thank you.

“You’re welcome,” she said sunnily, skipping around to the other side of the bike, taking in all the shiny chrome parts. “Your bike is pretty. I used to have a bike, but my dad made Marco run over it with his car. Marco said he’ll buy me another one, one day. But I don’t want a pink one. I think I want one like yours.”

I grunted, continuing to work. I thought that maybe kids were like wild beasts. If you didn’t make eye contact, they’d just wander off by themselves.

“Though my dad wasn’t really my dad. Marco is actually my dad,” the girl said, dropping that little bomb as she sat down beside me. “He used to be my dad’s bodyguard. Mommy would make faces at him all the time. Then Daddy found out and he’d hurt her, so she stopped making faces at him again.”

My fist tightened on my wrench. “Your dad sounds like an asshole,” I muttered.

She gasped, then giggled. “You swore.” She tapped her feet on the ground, making the lights along

the soles flash. “He was bad. Mommy was bad too. She used to hurt Sammie. Sometimes she’d lock him up in a cupboard. I didn’t know how to get him out ‘til I was a big girl.” She looked sad, feeling a guilt that shouldn’t land on shoulders so tiny.

“Not your fault.” I continued to untighten the nuts, resting them in a cut off coke can. “You should go back inside.”

She sighed. “Can’t I stay out here with you? I’m sick of being inside. I want the sun. Sammie says I’m like a sunflower.”

Something tugged on my face, and I realized it might be a smile so I shut that shit down. Instead, I handed her the coke can. “Fine. Be useful and hold this.”

She took the can happily. “I like your pretty skin drawings. One day, I want some skin drawings too. Marco said no.” She tapped her index and middle fingers to her thumb as she said it, and it didn’t take a fucking genius to work out that was the sign for no. “But I think I’ll get them anyway when I’m a grown up because people can’t tell you what to do when you’re a grown up.”

I didn’t answer her, but that didn’t seem to stop her. “I asked Marco if he was really my new Dad, if Sera would like to be my new Mom, but that made him go all red and he changed the subject.

Sammie said that was because I’d made him ‘barrassed, but adults don’t get ‘barrassed. Sammie said he was red because he really likes Sera and he’d probably like to marry her. Sammie also says that he can’t because Cain and Sol and the scary guy with an eyepatch want to marry her too and she can’t marry everyone because it's against the law.”

She stopped and looked at me. “But it shouldn’t be against the law if they love each other right?

Do you love Sera too? Sammie thinks you're scary but I don’t think you are. I think you are just sad.

You look sad like Mr. Budson next door at our old apartment after his dog Tilly died. Did your dog die?”

Holy shit. I was beginning to sympathise with Marco right now. “No. My dog didn’t die,” I grumbled. “My girlfriend died.”

---